Self-Reported Stressors in Early Adolescence: The Role of Educational Track and Ethnic Background

Abstract

The present study aimed to identify overall stress and salient stressors experienced by adolescents from different education tracks and self-perceived ethnic backgrounds. A total of 1489 adolescents ( M = 13.40 years; SD = 0.89 years) from nine Dutch secondary schools participated. Self-reported stressors were measured with the adapted version of the Adolescent Stress Questionnaire – Short. After controlling for age, gender, country of birth, and school classes, results showed that overall stress did not differ for educational track nor for ethnic background subgroups. Adolescents in academic education reported more stress from school-related stressors than adolescents attending vocational education. Adolescents with a mixed ethnic background (i.e., Dutch and another ethnicity) reported more stress regarding school-related stressors than adolescents with a Dutch ethnic background. These differences between adolescents of different educational tracks and ethnic backgrounds have implications for intervention programs targeting specific stressors.

Adolescent stress and mental health

“…Providing A recent systematic review demonstrated that the most salient domains of negative stressors among adolescents are related to the family (e.g., issues with parents), the school (e.g., school pressure), the self (e.g., health issues), and peers (e.g., romantic issues; Núñez-Regueiro & Núñez-Regueiro, 2021). School-related stressors are often experienced by adolescents, and include school pressure (e.g., taking exams, workload), school performance (e.g., keeping up with school work), and academic difficulties (e.g., failure in exams, poor grades; Anniko et al, 2019;Núñez-Regueiro & Núñez-Regueiro, 2021;Vogelaar et al, 2022). For instance, in the Netherlands, one in three secondary students experience stress and pressure from school (Kleinjan et al, 2020;Stevens et al, 2018).…”